Bitcoin has become one of the largest digital asset pools in the world, but the number of BTC who truly participate in on-chain financial activities is still limited. Stacks is attempting to bring this portion of funds onto the blockchain and is making "native Bitcoin finance" the core focus of its next phase.
Self-hosted staking as an entry point
The approach of Stacks is to first attract coin holders into the ecosystem by offering self-hosted Bitcoin staking. According to its design, users lock in BTC on the Bitcoin mainchain, while pairing it with STX valued at approximately 5% of their position to qualify for staking. BTC remains under the user's control, with a target annualized yield of about 3%, and is distributed in the form of BTC.
This revenue mechanism comes from the PoX consensus that has been in operation since January 2021 by Stacks. Miners participating in the block generation competition need to invest BTC, and the relevant BTC will be distributed to eligible participants. Stacks indicates that since its launch, this mechanism has cumulatively distributed over 4,200 BTC.
Compared to the model of distributing rewards by issuing new tokens, this means that the source of income is not from newly minted tokens, nor is it from lending users' BTC to others and then distributing interest. Instead, it comes from the BTC invested by miners during the network block generation process.
However, this product is still in the testing phase at present. Stacks mentioned that as of July 16, 2026, PoX-5 was still running on a private test network, and partners were testing the binding, reward distribution, and exit processes. Subsequent steps will also include public test networks and governance processes, and the launch on the main network has not yet been finalized.
The plan for 2026 is divided into three steps.
The roadmap of Stacks does not merely focus on attracting BTC deposits. Its plan for 2026 is divided into three parts: first, to attract funds through Bitcoin staking; then, to improve network performance and infrastructure; and finally, to expand applications to lending, trading, a sustainable market, and programmable BTC.
In terms of performance, the core developers of Stacks have proposed to increase the throughput capacity by 100 times, and related work includes advancing Clarity Wasm. The roadmap also mentions continuing to optimize the core network and improving the bridging capabilities of sBTC.
Stacks also mentioned that, with the growth of programmable financial activities, the network is expected to support up to 10,000 active AI agents. At the same time, the team is also exploring ways to allow sBTC to directly pay transaction fees, in order to reduce the need for users or automated programs to obtain independent Gas assets before using the application.
Ecosystem protocols complement lending and trading
Around this route, multiple protocols within the Stacks ecosystem have begun to lay out different financial modules.
- StackingDAO plans to launch BTC liquidity-backed tokens
- Bitflow provides DEX and liquidity trading support
- Zest Protocol Plans to Launch BTC Mortgage Loan Stablecoin Product
In addition, Hermetica is offering income and currency products that are linked to BTC, including hBTC and USDh. Its hBTC treasury will deploy BTC openly in strategies on chains such as lending, staking, and basis trading, with earnings denominated in BTC; USDh is positioned as a synthetic US dollar asset backed by Bitcoin.
These protocols show that Stacks intends to do more than just a single staking product; rather, they aim to gradually build a system encompassing trading, credit, stable assets, and income tools around BTC. For them, the real test lies not in the concept itself, but in whether they can eventually connect the staking portals under testing, the upgraded infrastructure, and the ecological applications into a sustainable, operational native Bitcoin financial system.
